Small town getting big makeover as McCordsville Town Center construction gets underway
Construction has begun on two apartment buildings in McCordsville’s planned town center at Broadway Avenue and Mount Comfort Road.
The 4-story buildings with retail space at street level will anchor a 130-acre spread of homes, cottages and condos, stores, parkland and a new town hall and police station called McCord Square.
The $50 million project designed by Rebar Development, of Fishers, is intended to meet the needs of a rapidly growing population in the town and surrounding area.
McCordsville grew from 1,132 resident in 2000 to an estimated 10,113 in 2021, said Tim Gropp, town manager. With single home permit applications swelling, the population could soon top 18,000, Gropp estimates.
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“We keep adding condos and homes but we don't have anything like these apartments,” Gropp said. "This adds another option.”
The McCord Square Apartments will have 205 one- and two- bedroom apartments with balconies, said Shelby Bowen, president of Rebar. The buildings, named The Lucas and The Jackson, will include a courtyard, café, swimming pool, workstations, dog park, rooftop co-working lounge, indoor bike storage and clubhouse.
Six storefronts of 1,000 square feet will be at the foot of the apartments, large enough for boutiques or professional offices.
Bowen said one tenant is already signed up: Leo’s Market and Eatery, which will provide convenience store essentials for quick trips.
Leo’s already has a 7,500-square-foot grocery and eatery in McCordsville at the intersection of County Road 900 North and Olio Road, as well as shops in Greenfield and Noblesville.
When McCordsville Town Center will open
The apartments are the first of three phases and should be completed in spring 2024, Bowen said. The next phase will include a police station and development of outdoor space, including trails, a foot bridge over a pond and a civic commons with an amphitheater.
The park area will be built mostly with $5 million from an Indiana Regional Economic Acceleration & Development Initiative grant. The city will add $3.5 million. The work includes road construction and utility hook ups.
Gropp said construction of a new town hall has been pushed back because officials thought it was more important to building the police station first.
“We’re a growing small town and we’ll be hiring nore police to keep pace,” Gropp said.
The department’s 16 officers now cram into a 1,200-square-foot space in the public works building “that was never intended to be a police station,” he said.
The department is expected to grow to about 25 officers in the next few years.
The town also is spending $5.4 million in federal grants and $1.1 million in local dollars for two road improvement projects that should reduce traffic back-ups caused by passing freight trains at the CSX tracks.
Mount Comfort Road will be widened from two lanes to four lanes at Broadway, which runs parallel to the tracks, and turn lanes will be added at Mount Comfort and County Road 500 North.
The widening of Mount Comfort at the tracks will allow vehicles to move through quicker after trains have passed and shorten the length of the lines.
In the future, town officials want to build a tunnel under the tracks, at an estimated cost of $40 million.
Call IndyStar reporter John Tuohy at 317-444-6418. Email at john.tuohy@indystar.com and follow on Twitter and Facebook.
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: McCordsville Town Center construction to begin at McCord Square
